Bloodborne, A Very Different Game

Bloodborne was an impulse purchase for me. I am a huge fan of Dishonored and wanted to preorder Dishonored 2 because the launch date was perfectly aligned with my exams.

While ordering, I noticed that Bloodborne was on sale and purchased it too.

5 weeks later, I’ve played more Bloodborne than Dishonored 2. Not that Dishonored 2 is a bad game, it’s excellent. But Bloodborne is so different from the usual AAA game that I got hooked to it.

Let me introduce Bloodborne to you.

It’s made by From Software, a studio famous for insanely difficult games. Heard of Dark Souls series? They are the guys who make Dark Souls. Bloodborne is very similar to Dark Souls, just faster paced and more focused on offence.

Back to the topic, what makes it different from your usual game?

1. You Can’t Pause

This is something that took me by complete surprise, you can’t pause the game. Hit the Playstation button in middle on combat and come back, you’ll be dead!

There’s no pause. Oh, and there’s no save or load option either! Whatever you do carries meaning in the game and you can’t repeat things like a normal game to explore different options.

2. It is repetitive

While you can’t go and repeat the ‘save [rar] execute [rar] mess up [rar] load [rar] repeat’ loop here, Bloodborne has it’s own different loop. Instead of loading, you die and come back to last activated hunter’s lamp.

Enemies are powerful and can kill you with 2-3 hits easily. Even when levelled up, don’t expect to be superhero that you are in other games. In fact, game gets harder and in later stages, enemies can kill you with a couple of hits in quick succession.

Bloodborne is repetitive but never boring. There’s intense satisfaction in beating the tough enemies and that’s rare in other games.

3. It is demanding

Most of other games are like a friendly person. They have tutorials and hand holding. But not Bloodborne. This game will smack you right in the face, tell you a bit about getting up and make you get up. But, as soon as you are up, it will smack you in the face again. That basically sums up the entire game.

And this tension is increased by the fact that you lose all your blood echoes (game’s currency) when you die. You have only one chance to get them back. Go back to that spot and the echoes will be either on the ground where you died or with a nearby enemy. If you die before retrieving them, they are lost forever.

Combine this with the fact that you can’t save or load, you have a formula that will have you going for one more try. I’m still stuck at the third boss for a week now and have been trying continuously to beat it.

In an industry where a lot of focus is on making things as beginner friendly and approachable as possible, Bloodborne is a game that isn’t afraid to be different. You will have to work to know its secrets. But when you get to know them, that will be an immensely satisfying feeling.